The Lost Horcrux

A Witch's Vow

Disclaimers: Dark themes, police state ideas, mention of spousal abuse (including rape) on and off-screen, death of minor characters, graphic imagery and violence, frank sex discussion, copious bad language, bashing the fucking Weasleys and Dumbledore, liberties taken with mythical history.

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The Wizarding media quickly dubbed it 'The Sacking of Glastonbury'. The story, in various blood-curdling forms, was covered extensively for the next few weeks. Indeed, as far as The Daily Prophet was concerned, the rest of the world and all the people in it had ceased to exist. The various arms of the Wizarding Wireless Network, both audio and visual formats, ran exclusive after exclusive on the events, turning its propaganda wheels to full speed in an attempt to demonise the culprits.

So, thus it came to be, that Harry Potter's name was making headline news again.

And, in their eyes, he had never been more evil. Nor had he ever been more happy to be so. The Prophet had dubbed him with such imaginative monikers as 'Potter the Putrid' and 'Heartless Harry'. For what other sort of monster would kill defenceless monks simply pursuing their devout worship of the One True Lord? The small detail of ritual child sacrifice had failed to earn so much as a passing comment in any of the harrowing news reports. Funny that.

The poor little girl, who had been so close to becoming just another statistic in the Dark World, hadn't spoken at all. She was in a state of shock so deep she was practically catatonic. None of the healing witches had managed to get a peep out of her. She'd relented, without resistance, to be bathed and cleaned and dressed, and numbly accepted soup that was hand-fed to her. But she hadn't said a word or moved at all, other than to close her eyes to sleep, only to open them again with petrified reluctance when the time came.

Hermione was deeply worried about her. She had formed an immediate attachment to the child, her dormant maternal instinct stoked to life by the visions of horror that almost befell this meek, pretty little thing. Her panicked screams, her desperate, pleading eyes as she sat fixed to that infernal sacrifice throne ... Hermione struggled to push the memories from her mind. In the end, Harry was forced to put temporary blockers into her brain, to prevent the images invading her dreams.

For Lord knows Hermione had enough darkness to fight against during the night as it was.

But during the day, Hermione sat with the girl as much as anyone, helping to feed her and trying to coax some sort of response, but to no avail. They guessed the girl was around six or seven years old, but there was no way to be certain. Hermione suggested using a ritual to try and help her, but Harry felt that such magic might have been responsible for her condition, and might only cause her greater distress if she were exposed to it again.

Secretly, Harry felt that the girl might be better off in her broken head, where she might have found a place of safety. For if the horrors she'd endured came back to her fragile young mind, the effect could be devastating enough to permanently fracture it. If nearly getting roasted alive wasn't bad enough, Myfanwy had found a ritual altar nearby ... with two adult sacrifices still bleeding into a ceremonial chalice. The blonde-haired woman might have been the girl's mother ... but there wasn't enough left of her face to make a positive connection.

So the girl had simply become another of Voldemort's Orphans. She was in elite company in that group, along with Harry, of course. But he didn't want to think about that, for it caused his mind to drift painfully to Teddy Lupin. Harry had no idea what had happened to his Godson, as he had never been able to trace him. He shuddered to think how badly Remus and Tonks would judge him, if he ever had to answer to them for not looking harder for the son they left to Harry's care.